Margot Bennett - The Man Who Didn't Fly

“Do you think he informed against them?”

“Well, you’d know, wouldn’t you, not me? I couldn’t tell you what Harry would do. He was an odd sort of man, but very likeable, in his odd sort of way,” Murray said sadly. “May I go now?”

“Just one or two questions, if you’ve no objections?”

They asked him a great many questions, but at the end of it they were no wiser, and they let him go.

When he had gone they opened the windows to let the tobacco-smoke out, and then sent for the files on the train mailbag attempt, and on the Sackford diamond robbery.

“I hope this Harry is the man who missed that plane,” Lewis said. “I’d like to meet him.”

MOIRA FERGUSON sat watching the Wades being interviewed again. Her manner suggested that she was present as a judge, not as a witness. The Wades behaved more like inexpert conspirators. In the four days since the crash of the plane they had lived in a state of shock interrupted by perpetual questioning; now they were so bewildered by their own evasions that they left a little of the truth behind in each abandoned position.

Charles Wade sat now gazing in mournful appeal at his two daughters, begging them silently for permission to say more than he had said. Hester gave him a quick glance of warning, then closed her eyes. Prudence scowled at the police, then quickly substituted an icy smile. She was sixteen, and her greatest fear was that they might think her unsophisticated.

Inspector Lewis, looking peculiarly solemn and incorruptible, like a judge at an agricultural show, examined all their faces. Sergeant Young looked around the room, a shabby room in worn chintz, a room with a view across a valley where the morning shadows lay like folds of drapery. He glanced at the roses that sprawled from a blue vase.

“I’m sorry,” Hester said. “They’re dying. I’ve had no time to change the water.” She looked quickly away from the roses, as though the sight of them caused her pain.

“So there’s nothing you can tell me about Morgan Price. Nothing at all, except that he was about forty and had no bad habits. In fact, Mr Wade, from what you’ve told me, I’d say he had no habits at all,” Inspector Lewis said carefully.

“He always thought he was ill when he wasn’t,” Prudence said in a kind of explosion.

“So he came here for his health?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure,” Hester said, frowning at Prudence.

“But he lived with you as a paying guest?”

“Yes, that’s true,” Charles Wade said, glad of the opportunity to answer a simple question.

“How did he come to live here? And when?”

“About a year ago. We put an advertisement in a paper,” Hester said shortly.

“What did it say?”

“It’s not easy to be sure now. Something like Quiet house in quiet Cotswolds. Room for paying guest. Suit artist, writer, country-lover.”

“And which was Morgan Price?”

“He wasn’t an artist or a writer anyway,” Prudence said promptly.

“So he must have been a country-lover,” the inspector suggested.

Moira gave a little twitching laugh.

“Would you describe him as a country-lover?” Inspector Lewis persisted.

“He sometimes went for walks,” Hester said.

“But mostly he stayed in the house,” Prudence added.

“Why did you want a writer or an artist or a country-lover?”

“A strange taste is not necessarily criminal,” Hester muttered.

“Do you have any other paying guests?”

“No. Let me save you a few questions. We are rather poor. We found we had a spare room, and hoped to make a little money easily. Morgan paid his rent regularly, by cash,” Hester said with some spirit.

“Did he have many friends?”

“No. I think he was shy,” Hester said.

“I don’t think he was shy,” Prudence said.

“What do you think he was?”

“I can’t explain.” Prudence wriggled in an unsophisticated manner. “But when we were talking he was always listening to something else, not the conversation, so that people stopped listening to what they were saying and everyone got jumpy.”

“Had he no profession, no business, no occupation?”

“Not when he was here.”

“Did you think he was a strange guest, Mr Wade?”

Wade looked round for help. “I don’t think so. People have independent means, sometimes. I still know some people who have, and some of them are shy.”

“And what seems strange afterwards didn’t seem strange at the time,” Hester added quickly.

“Can you tell me anything about his general behaviour?”

“He liked doing chess problems or at least he didn’t,” Prudence said. “He would set the pieces up and stare at them then knock the board away and go to the window and look out. That was the way he read books too, for about five minutes at a stretch. He was always sitting down and getting up again. And he and Harry…” She looked at Hester, then let the sentence die. “And he what?”

“Oh, nothing.”

Inspector Lewis looked at his fingernails and Sergeant Young looked at the inspector. They appeared to communicate, for Sergeant Young drew a line in his notebook and turned the page.

“Now, what about Maurice Reid?” the inspector said. “I’m told he was a friend of the family. Is that so?”

“Yes,” said Hester, almost whispering. “A friend.”

“How long had you known him?”

“About nine months.”

“And you’d seen a lot of him?”

“He took a cottage to be near them,” Moira said contemptuously. “Joe never liked him.”

“He was here the night before the plane left, Mr Wade?”

“Yes, yes. That’s true. Hester, do you mind, could we have some coffee?”

The inspector was kind enough to ignore this wistful suggestion.

“How did you spend this – this last evening?”

“He had dinner here, but I went to a dance,” Prudence said casually.

“Then…” Wade began. He looked in appeal at Hester.

“Then we listened to music,” Hester said quickly. “Records. Bach. Do you like music, Inspector?” she asked wildly.

“I’m tone-deaf,” the inspector said.

“I do,” said Sergeant Young unexpectedly. He smiled at Hester. “Do you play, Miss Wade?”

“I play the violin,” she said, looking at him for the first time, and appearing to be surprised that he should seem so like other human beings.

“I was once going to be a professional pianist. But I wasn’t good enough. So I joined the police force.” He looked cautiously at his superior, who smiled just enough to show that the sergeant was to be allowed rope to inspire confidence.

“What kind of man was Maurice Reid, Miss Wade?” Lewis asked more amiably.

“He seemed reliable and kind. He had a square, brown face. I think he had travelled a lot. He wasn’t young – between thirty-five and forty, I suppose. He always seemed healthy, and almost aggressively clean.” She looked gravely at the two detectives, who were brushed, scrubbed, shaved, creased, and shining, as if they had been preparing for inspection by Royalty. “He had a flat in London. Down here he had a tiny week-end cottage, and lived alone in it.” She looked coldly at Moira. “To be near them, the third person plural, one supposes.”

“What was his occupation?”

“Something in the city, wasn’t it, Father?” she said, trying to control the trembling of his hands with a look.

“So he had money?”

“Not real money,” Moira Ferguson intervened again.

Lewis turned to her. “It was your husband who chartered the plane?”

“You know it was. I’ve said so, often enough. He had to go to Ireland on business. He chartered it for himself and his associates, who in the end couldn’t come. That’s why these others flew with him – if they did. He was trying to fill up the seats. And I’ll tell you now that he had an occupation. He was a company director, and his special interest was the Constellation Circuit – cinemas, you know. He at least was respected by everyone,” she said in a flat voice.